


More Days Like This

by lovelornity



Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Dancing, Doctor-centric, Episode Related, Episode Tag, F/M, Gen, Multi, Post-Episode: s01e10 The Doctor Dances, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 05:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20304364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelornity/pseuds/lovelornity
Summary: After everybody lives during the London Blitz, the Ninth Doctor, Rose, and Jack take their good luck elsewhere and continue the dancing trend while getting to know one another too.This had been a work in progress for so long, that time travel is now a part of the MCU. And so is the entire point of this story. Oh well. Have a crossover anyway.





	More Days Like This

The evening sky was a perfect gradient of blue and yellow as a woman in a brown coat stood in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, watching the sun set into the bay. In her hand, she clutched a small empty vial whose contents were flowing out to sea in the East River below. The sound of various strains of music poured out of the windows of passing cars, swirling around her in a cacophony of sound, overwhelming her, comforting her. Soon, the fading waves of music were drowned out by a bizarre noise, almost like the sound of a car engine that refused to turn over. The woman turned to see a blue police box materialize beside her.

* * *

“Rose! I’ve just remembered!” the Doctor exclaimed suddenly, a broad smile forming on his face. 

“What?” came the cheery response from his yellow-haired companion.

“I can dance!” he beamed, his body beginning to move along to the 1940s tune being broadcast from the TARDIS console. He held out his hand to her in invitation.

Rose observed him skeptically, remember her failed lesson only moments before. “Actually, Doctor, I thought Jack might like this dance.” She motioned toward the recently-reprieved Captain Jack Harkness standing near the doorway.

The Doctor was unperturbed. “I’m sure he would, Rose,” he replied gleefully, snapping his fingers in time with the music. “I’m absolutely certain. But who with?” He eyed Jack mischievously and was met with a flirtatious smirk from the captain. Before Jack could react further, a giggling Rose jumped back up onto the platform and into the arms of the Doctor who had, in fact, remembered how to dance.

Jack looked on amused, his head still spinning from having been staring down certain death only moments before. But he was good at rolling with the punches, both literally and figuratively. As he looked around the bridge of this ship that was somehow bigger on the inside and at the two beings currently dancing around within it, he knew he would be a fool to jeopardize whatever he was being welcomed into here. If, in fact, he was being welcomed in at all. As if in answer to his ponderings, the Doctor dipped his companion for a dramatic finish. She righted herself, laughing and slightly out of breath as she brushed a few loose strands of hair from her face.

“Right then, Jack, let’s see what else you’ve got.”

Jack flashed his best 1,000 watt smile and removed his hat, sending it flying past the TARDIS console like a frisbee. He took off his coat as well, draping it across one of the flight seats with the familiarity of someone who had been a passenger on the Time Lord’s vessel all along. A new song had begun playing, an uptempo jazz number from earlier in Earth’s history. Jack expertly took Rose’s hand and spun her around twice so that he was now standing in front of the Doctor.

“Doctor,” he offered his hand. 

The Doctor smiled broadly and looked over Jack’s shoulder at Rose. “What did I tell you, Rose?”

She laughed in response. “Go on, then!”

The Doctor took Jack by the and and immediately made it clear that he would be leading. Jack yielded without hesitation, and the two started dancing some sort of jazzy swing dance that Rose had never seen before. At times, they were dancing side by side, linked only by their arms draped across the small of one another’s backs while their feel performed synchronized kicks and taps. And then they would come together again in a more traditional manner and take turns doing spins and throw outs. 

Once Jack’s hand wandered lower on the Doctor’s backside than was strictly necessary for the dance, but the Doctor did not miss a beat. “Mind your hand, Captain, I’d hate for you to lose it,” he said calmly, his blue eyes twinkling playfully as he reached behind him and guided Jack’s hand back to his waist. Jack in turn let his arm drop from the Doctor entirely and with his other arm, spun the Doctor toward Rose, who had been watching incredulously and providing the occasional applause. The Doctor scooped her up in his arms and spun her around so that she was now in between the two men. They spent the rest of the song taking turns dancing with Rose until the une came to an end and Jack and Rose collapsed happily into the flight seats. 

The TARDIS began to play a new song, a sweet and slow duet that seemed startlingly different from the previous upbeat instrumentals she had chosen. Rose watched as the Doctor smiled wistfully at the glowing central column of the console, as if it had spoken to him. Her time with the Doctor on the TARDIS thus far made her think that just maybe it had. It was more than a ship, Rose was sure of it. Like when it would take them to the wrong destination, which always ended up being right where they needed to be, or rather, right where they were needed. 

“Farewell, 1941!” Jack exclaimed, raising his right hand to his forehead in a salute. “Good music, lovely people, but I’m glad to see you go.”

“How long were you there?” Rose asked, finally turning her attention away from the Doctor.

“Which time?” he replied mysteriously.

“Is that where you learned to dance like that?”

“Oh, I had some excellent tutors when it comes to dancing. I have moves you wouldn’t believe.”

Rose snorted, “Oh I believe it.” She turned to the Doctor, who had approached the console, and with a few pressed buttons and pulled levers, sent the ship whizzing purposefully through the vortex. “What about you? Where did you learn to dance? Or can’t you remember?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the Doctor replied, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the console. “When you’re as old as I am, you just pick things up.”

“But you don’t always remember them, at least not right away?”

The Doctor’s eyes went distant for a moment. “My mind’s been preoccupied with other things for so long…” he paused for a moment before breaking out one of his signature grins. “It’s nice to have a reason to dance again.”

“Wait, are we talking about dancing or are we talking about screwing?” Jack asked, looking back and forth between Rose and the Doctor. “It’s hard to follow.”

Rose stifled her resulting laughter in her sleeve and the Doctor’s smile broadened as he shook his head.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jack continued, “both have their merits, but in the end they are two very different things.” 

Rose was about to tell Jack that they could both come from the same place emotionally, but she turned to the Doctor to find him staring absently at the TARDIS column again and lost her train of thought. He did not look sad exactly, but Rose had never seen him quite like this before. 

Come to think of it, she had seen many sides of the Doctor today that she had never seen before—his pure joy at returning Jamie to his mother and saving all the gas masked people had been truly radiant, and Rose’s heart still felt warmed by it. She had also been surprised by their subtext-laden conversations at the hospital and crash site. Seeing him flustered and defensive had made him seem less alien somehow—for however brief a moment—and had pleased her greatly, and she found herself replaying in her mind every embrace, every smile, every time he held her hand and wondering if there had been more to those moments too. As she watched him, Rose realized his gaze and shifted across the TARDIS toward her, though his expression was still rather vacant and unreadable. 

“I met this human recently,” the Doctor suddenly said, looking back at the TARDIS console as the old music played. “A woman—an American, but British. She was an agent in some government agency with a sciency name. Chatty one, she was. It’s this face. Apparently it makes people want to tell me things. Ok, it may have been prompted by some choice words on my end.” As he spoke, he turned and began to press buttons and pull levers on the console. “But this woman had a fella who she met in the war. The very one we just left. But duty, fighting, it got in the way. They made plans they could never keep—promises of a dance—a real one,” he added, looking at Jack. “But on one mission, he never came home. Now this woman, it had been a couple a years since he died, but she told me she is still waiting for that dance.” 

The song came to an end as the Doctor finished his story. A new song began after it and a silence hung in the air.

“Wow,” Jack said finally. “Way to kill the mood, Doc.”

Rose frowned. “He has a point. I thought we were celebrating.” 

“What if I told you that the man she lost isn’t lost at all. He was actually frozen for 65 years.”

“Now you’re making stuff up,” Rose sat up straighter, her eyes widening.

“They will meet again,” the Doctor continued, “but they’ll never get that dance.”

“How do you know?”

The Doctor threw her a smug look, the _“Come on, I’m a Time Lord”_ kind. He actually said, “Because I’ve met her young man. He’s part of some silly club that tries their hand at stopping alien invasions and such. Amateurs.” 

Rose leapt to her feet. “What if we could give her that dance? Oh, Doctor, could we?”

The Doctor pulled one last lever and the TARDIS settled in a way that indicated they had landed. The Doctor beamed at her. “Take a look.”

Rose took off at once for the door, opening it only slightly so she could peer outside. She turned to look at the Doctor. “This doesn’t look like the 1940s.”

“How can you tell,” Jack asked, joining her at the door. He seemed completely unphased by the fact that they had traveled anywhere at all.

“The giant alien spaceship-looking things kind of give it away,” she replied, opening the door wider and gesturing outside.

“Not alien, Rose. Human.” The Doctor walked up behind them and put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Well, there may be some alien tech in there somewhere. You’re looking at post-invasion America. 2015.” 

“Oh, now _there’s_ a story for later!” Rose exclaimed, stepping out into the sunlight.

“So, not a stickler for rules, huh?” Jack asked the Doctor as they followed Rose into the twenty-first century.

“That depends on the rule. At any number of times in my life, I have been a thief, a fugitive, a meddler. A murderer,” he added darkly, but recovered quickly. “There are fixed points—people and events that you must never interfere with. But time, it’s in flux. Every day you lot make a decision—go right instead of left, take up with an alien in a blue box instead of staying behind with an idiot boyfriend—and the Universe unfolds around that decision. At any moment, anything is possible anywhere in the Universe. We’re just helping this one along.”

“So no, then?” Jack replied cheekily.

“It isn’t always like this, lad,” the Doctor answered. “You got lucky today. You seem like a man who thinks he has all the answers, right? Cap’n Jack,” he said mockingly, “Pilot of a stolen ship, carelessly galavanting from here to there, meddling in things with no thought to the consequences.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he heard Rose’s voice in his head. _“I trust him because he’s like you.”_ Still, he did not miss a beat. “We both chose our titles—Doctor, Captain. I know what my name says about who I am. But who are you, Jack? A con man? A loner? Or a leader?” He clapped Jack on the shoulder and said, “It’s up to you,” before joining Rose as she enthusiastically took in their surroundings.

“So this is only ten years into my future?” she asked excitedly.

“Well, it’s not the year five billion or anything, but I suppose it’s alright.”

“I have never even left England before—” she waved her hand dismissively in a you-know-what-I’m-saying gesture when he threw her an incredulous look, “—and now I’m in America. In the future.”

“Rural New York,” Jack said flatly, joining them. “The thrill of a lifetime.” 

A huge rainbow beam descended from the sky and disappeared behind the building in front of them. 

“You were saying?” Rose asked as the three time travelers ran around the corner of the building in time to see a man disappear along with the beam. 

The Doctor shook his head. “Asgardians. Always so dramatic.”

“As-what?” Rose asked, but before the Doctor could explain, they were noticed by the two men left standing by the ornate symbol burned into the lawn where what must have been a teleporter had touched down.

“Doctor!” exclaimed one of the men. His face was partially obscured by a large pair of sunglasses that reminded Rose of a septuagenarian woman on holiday, but she was promptly sidetracked by the man at his side. He was dressed in some sort of red, white, and blue uniform that hid—but was still suggestive of—the remarkable body beneath it.

The Doctor noticed Rose’s stare and whispered, “That’s our man.”

Rose’s head whipped back towards the Doctor. “I thought you said this guy was over 65 years old?”

“I said he was _frozen_ for 65 years; I didn’t say he’d aged.”

Rose did not have time to argue semantics now. The not-old frozen guy and sunglasses man had approached.

“Doctor,” the sunglasses-clad man tried again, staring at Jack and Rose as if he were noticing them for the first time. 

“Tin Man,” the Doctor greeted him enthusiastically, and the other man grinned in response.

“Hold on a minute, Doctor. You never said anything about Captain America being the subject of your little story,” Jack exclaimed once he had gotten a good look at the man they had come to meet.

“Didn’t I?” the Doctor responded absent-mindedly.

Jack raised his hand to give the Captain a salute. “Jack Harkness, sir.” He flashed one of his thousand watt smiles, then proceeded to whistle a few bars of “Star Spangled Man With A Plan.” 

Captain America shook his head with a laugh. “Please, call me Steve. My rank is more honorary than anything.”

“So is mine, “Jack replied good naturedly, while Steve’s companion clapped him on the back with a friendly, “Don’t be so modest, Cap.”

“I”m Rose,” Rose butted in when it was clear that the Doctor would not be making any introductions.

Steve gave her a polite nod, while the other man turned his attention over to Rose, who suddenly felt like the only person in the universe with the way he was looking at her through his rose-colored lenses. “Tony Stark,” he introduced himself in his you-may-have-heard-of-me style.

“Stark…” Jack said slowly, giving Tony a thoroughly and unabashedly sexual onceover. 

“Oh God, what?” Tony replied quickly.

“Any relation to a Howard Stark? Genius intelligence. Quaint moustache. Killer ass.”

Tony plucked off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, stifling a laugh. “My father.” He looked up at Jack pitifully. “Please. I don’t wanna know.” 

Jack said nothing, but smiled in a way that revealed all. Steve looked back and forth between the two men, grinning like this was the most fun he’d had in years. 

“51st century hormones,” the Doctor told Tony. “Watch yourself. And you,” he narrowed his eyes at Jack, “give it a rest.”

Tony cleared his throat. “So, Doc, to what do we owe this pleasure? If you’re here to save the world, you’re a little late.”

Rose’s ears perked up. “Ooh, what did we miss?” 

“Killer robots,” Steve stated matter-of-factly.

“Seriously?” asked Jack.

“How quaint.” The Doctor was dismissive, but glanced knowingly at the two superheroes.

“Tell that to the Sokovians,” Tony snapped. Steve reached out to put a reassuring hand on Tony’s shoulder. He allowed the conciliatory gesture for a brief moment before shrugging out of Steve’s touch.

“We’re here for a victory lap of sorts,” Rose started, hoping to diffuse the tension that had suddenly arisen. She would have to remember to ask the Doctor about Sokovia as well, though she did not know how much he would actually tell her. For as verbose as the Doctor was, he was rather reticent about what he revealed about the immediate future of her planet. “The Doctor is on a saving high and the TARDIS led us here.”

“Like I said, you’re a little late for saving,” Tony replied coolly. 

The Doctor looked intently at Steve. “But how about dancing?”

* * *

“So how do you know them anyway?” Rose asked as the five of them walked to the TARDIS.

“I’m 900 years old. I’ve met lots of people.” The Doctor tried to look offended. “What do you think I do while you lot sleep? Sit around and knit?”

“Well that one guy _did_ have an abnormally long scarf,” Tony chimed in. “I’ve seen the photos.”

“Oi! That was a gift!”

“How many times have you teamed up?” Jack asked.

“Just the once.”

“For you, maybe. There’s the one who calls himself the President of the World that we’ve dealt with a couple times,” Steve pointed out. The Doctor visibly cringed at the title.

“Yeah. Bit of a mad scientist, rock star vibe,” Tony added enthusiastically. “He’s great.”

“Wait, so there’s more than one Doctor?” Rose asked as her brow furrowed in confusion. “I thought you were the last of your kind?”

“I am. It’s complicated. I’ll explain it to you sometime,” the Doctor replied dismissively, hoping the promise was enough to satisfy Rose on the matter for now.

They had reached the TARDIS, but before the Doctor opened the door, he turned to look at Tony in particular. “You. No touching.”

Tony threw up his hands and did his best to look innocent. As the doors opened and they all filed in, Jack leaned in close to Tony and whispered, “I don’t have that rule.” Tony smirked but shook his head. “Your loss.” 

“You sure this is a good idea?” Steve was looking as unsure as he had on the lawn of the Avengers facility. He was fidgeting with what looked like a pocket watch or something to Rose, who split her attention between him and Tony, whose reaction was far more excitable. He was walking circles around the console and following the Doctor’s every move with his eyes.

“Absolutely. Pop in, pop out, no one’s the wiser.” He looked at Steve with a gentle expression his face rarely made. “You understand why it must be that way, right?”

Steve slipped the compass into a pocket and nodded. He knew the drill. “The timeline must be protected.” 

“But there’s wiggle room,” Rose chimed in. “That’s where we operate.”

“Exactly,” the Doctor beamed at her, then slapped Tony’s hands away from a button on the console before he threw the lever and sent them barrelling through time and space.

* * *

The door to the blue box on the Brooklyn Bridge opened, and out stepped not the man the woman in the brown coat had been expecting, but the very man she had been mourning, looking perhaps a little older than she remembered, a little more comfortable in his skin. She could not keep back her tearful gasp as he walked toward her with that same sweet smile that had warmed her heart back when he had been an eager recruit.

“Sorry I’m late.” 

It was as the Doctor said. Just a quick trip. But there was dancing. And assurances made by both of them that they were alright. And as the pair danced in the sunset over the New York Bay, the Doctor smiled to himself from within the TARDIS. 

He needed more days like this.


End file.
